For 20 years, Landry Major was a professional photographer specializing in editorial and advertising. “Mostly portraits,” she says, “[until] I reached a point where I wanted to do a project just for myself, something I was passionate about.” Her Keepers of the West series is now hailed as an important body of photographic art within the Western art world. The California artist recently received the Center for Photographic Art’s 2023 Critical Mass Solo Exhibition Award, and a large selection of Landry’s gelatin silver prints from Keepers of the Westwill be highlighted in an exhibition at CPA beginning this fall.
Crae in the Field, silver gelatin print, 30 x 40”
“It grew out of experiences I had as a young girl, spending summers at my father’s family dairy farm in Nova Scotia,” Major says of Keepers of the West. “I would get up at 5 a.m. and go out to herd the cattle so my uncle could milk them in the barn. I’d spend the day in the fields. The land and animals resonated with me deeply. And I felt like I was meant to live that life, but of course school and work and love and then a child took me on a different path.”
A Girl’s View, silver gelatin print, 20 x 24”
The series features cowboys and cowgirls on horseback, young would-be ranchers learning how to rope, detailed shots of a horse’s mane, a rustic barn in the distance—all in black and white. The lack of color is striking, adding dramatic contrast between subject and backdrop. “[This series] took me back to [those] fields at dawn, this time on the family-run ranches of the American West. Visions of the West have long been central to our culture, but the way of life of the cowboy and the family-run ranch is fast disappearing,” she says.
The Old Barn in Winter, silver gelatin print, 20 x 24”
“I felt some sadness when I started the series—I wasn’t optimistic about the future of these family ranches. Fifty percent of them were owned by people over 65, and too many of their children weren’t interested in ranching,” Major continues. “But since 2020 I’ve seen a change, a new interest in ranching primarily from the young women in these families. And they’re innovating [and] adapting to changes in the climate and the economy, diversifying beyond just raising cattle. There’s an energy and an enthusiasm that’s infectious. At one point, I decided I needed to show what it was like on these ranches in winter. Working with animals outside in a Montana winter is as hard as it gets.”
Winter’s Horses, silver gelatin print, 20 x 24”
The Critical Mass Solo Exhibition Award is presented in tandem with Photolucida. Landry Major: Keepers of the West will be on view at the Center for Photographic Art from October 7 to November 5, with an opening reception the first day from 4 to 6 p.m.
“My hope for people viewing my exhibition is that they feel and remember a connection with nature many of us have lost. I don’t sugarcoat this life; it’s hard,” says Major. “But that silence of standing in an open field at dawn [and] hearing horses running in. The feeling of belonging, caring for the land and the creatures who inhabit it. It’s a way of life that may seem old-fashioned, but to me that means it’s also timeless—a profound part of our shared American heritage.” —
Landry Major: Keepers of the West
Oct. 7-Nov. 5, 2023
Center for Photographic Art, Sunset Center
San Carlos and 9th Avenue, Carmel-by-the-Sea, CA 93921
(831) 625-5181, www.photography.org
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